


King's Academy

by Spurlunk



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Boarding School, Fluff, Gen, High School, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 12:13:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spurlunk/pseuds/Spurlunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A boarding school AU of ASOIAF focusing mainly on the Stark siblings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If quality is what you're looking for, you won't find it here.

”And participation it at least one sport is mandatory. You look like an athletic young man, what are you interested in?”

Gendry mumbled something and shrugged.

“We have swimming, baseball, soccer, fencing, karate, lacrosse…”

“I don’t care.”

“I’ll sign you up for karate then, we’ve always got a few empty spots there. Now, this is Theon, he’s here on scholarship just like you. He’ll show you around, introduce you to a few people. Welcome to King’s Academy!”

Theon was a scrawny, skinny guy who looked about Gendry’s age. He was trying to grow a moustache, it seemed, and his shirt was coming untucked in the back. He wasn’t smiling; showing the new kid around didn’t look like his idea of a fun time.

They walked out of the administration building and onto the quad, a central grassy area from where almost all of the school was visible. 

“The classrooms are over there, grades six through eight are in that building and nine through twelve are in that one. Those buildings are the girls’ dorms, and those are the boys’. That’s the dining hall, the teachers and staff live there, that’s the gym. The fields are behind it. The theater and arts building is behind that wolf statue right there. Come on,” he said, walking quickly towards the boys’ dorms without looking back to see if Gendry was following (he was). It was a Sunday, so the dorm was fairly full, doors open and boys talking and laughing loudly. At the large staircase in the front lobby of the building, Theon left Gendry on his own. The tour was over. 

Gendry sighed and hoisted his duffel bag over one shoulder, heading up the stairs and down the hall until he found his room. He knocked, but no one answered so he tried the door and found it open, pushing it hard so that it banged against the wall. A pudgy boy with a squashed in looking face lying on one of the twin beds jumped up with a start. Half of the room looked empty and unused, which reassured Gendry that this was in fact the right room.

“What the -”

“I’m Gendry, your new roommate,” he told the younger boy.

“I’m Hot Pie.”

“That’s your name?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, it’s my name. I like baking. And eating.”

“Okay then.” Gendry said with a shrug, and began to unpack his things, setting the bull’s head sculpture he’d made back at his old school on top of the dresser.

~

Hot Pie was proving much more of a useful person to know than Theon, despite first impressions to the contrary. He took Gendry down to the dining hall, and after a huge helping of food he began to explain the social dynamics of the school.

“That’s Joffrey. He’s horrible. Don’t talk to him. His parents are really rich and they donated a lot of money to the school so he doesn’t ever get in trouble for anything,” he said, pointing to a weaselly looking blond kid sitting a few tables away from them.

“Doesn’t look like much.”

“That’s Robb Stark, Jon Snow, and Theon Greyjoy.”

“I met Theon.”

“Yeah well they’re pretty tight. They’ve known each other since they were little; I think their families all live in the same town or something. Robb’s the star of the baseball team, Jon and Theon play on it too. Jon’s kind of emo. He likes to write songs. I think he used to be in a band.”

“A band?”

Hot Pie shrugged, moving on.

“The Stark family’s also pretty influential, I guess. All their kids go here. Robb, Sansa - she’s the red-haired girl next to Joffrey -, Arya, Bran, and Rickon.”

“Five kids?”

“Yeah. Over there, see the table at the far end? That’s Renly, Margaery, and Loras. They’re like the most popular three people in the whole school. Renly’s student body president, Margaery’s head cheerleader, and Loras - well, every girl in school and even some of the guys has a crush on him.”

“Are they together?” Gendry asked. 

“Well Margaery and Loras are brother and sister, but nobody knows who’s with who - some people think Renly and Margaery are dating, other people think that Loras and Renly are dating, some people even think that Margaery and Loras have something going on.”

“Who’s that tall boy sitting with them?”

“That’s not a boy, that’s Brienne. She’s got a really obvious crush on Renly, and I guess he’s too nice to shut her down. She’s the only girl on the baseball team. Baseball is kind of the thing here.”

“Are you on the baseball team?”

“Do I look like I care about sports?” Hot Pie said, and took a bite of his namesake. 

~

When Gendry showed up to karate practice, the room was already abuzz with activity, a dozen or so preteens were getting instruction from a grizzled looking older man who introduced himself as Yoren and then sent Gendry over to the back corner, where two older kids were already training.

He recognized the teenager with dark, side swept hair as Jon Snow, and the girl, a few years younger, was definitely one of the Stark sisters.

“Yoren told me to join you over here,” Gendry said. He felt a little uneasy as both pairs of eyes turned to look at him, but kept it from showing.

“Have you taken karate lessons before?” Jon asked him.

“No. I used to box though.”

“Okay. This is Arya. She’s more advanced than the younger kids and I need teaching experience to get my black belt, so I give her lessons separately. You can join us and if you’re not at her level I’ll just send you back over to Yoren.”

Gendry eyed the girl. She couldn’t be more than fourteen, her mousy brown hair cut short and choppy, like she’d done it herself. He had seen her around campus the past week, and she always looked kind of angry. Hot Pie said that he used to be friends with her but she was ‘scary’. Gendry thought he could probably hold his own.

“Okay, first we’ll run through some basic blocks, kicks and punches just to make sure you have them down, and then we’ll do some sparring.”

At first they worked silently, Jon barking out commands and Gendry doing his best to follow them. He thought he was doing pretty well, and Arya had a seemingly permanent scowl on her face. 

“Good. You’re a quick learner. So is Arya. You’d be pretty well-matched, if it wasn’t for your size. Go grab some of those pads and I’ll see how you do sparring with each other.” Jon said. Gendry put on the mouth guard and strapped on the gloves and foot-things as Arya did the same. He was a little uneasy about fighting a girl only half his size, even with all of this protection.

She came at him in a whirlwind of fists and feet, and the surprise caught him off guard more than any actual force or pain. Gendry fell backwards, landing hard on the mat.

“Ow.”

“Arya, you’re not supposed to actually hit him, the pads are just in case.” Jon said, but Gendry thought he heard a hint of amusement in the other boy’s voice. He got to his feet and they started again, bouncing on the balls of their feet. Gendry waited for Arya to make the first move - he felt weird hitting a girl, especially one younger and smaller - but it seemed like she was waiting too.

“Hit me already, stupid!” she finally said, her voice coming out garbled through the mouth guard. Jon had clearly given up with the two of them; he was having too much fun just watching. Arya started coming after Gendry again, but he didn’t want to hit her back so he just kept blocking her blows, amused at her obvious frustration.

“Hey, now, class is over! How long are you going to torture that poor girl?” Yoren said, walking over. Gendry stopped what he was doing to see that the rest of the room had emptied out, and Arya took advantage of his distraction to land a strong punch to his stomach, knocking the breath right out of him.

“Arya!” Yoren said. She spat out her mouth guard, took off her gloves, bowed to Yoren, and left the room, stomping her feet as she went. 

“I think she likes you.” Jon said to Gendry as the two of them watched her go.

~


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa was a little nervous - it was her first time cheerleading at an actual game, but she thought she was probably ready. Jeyne Poole was just excited that her friend had actually made it onto the squad at all, and Margaery kept reassuring her that she would do fine. She was in the back anyway, so unless she did something REALLY stupid no one would even notice. The girls had all gotten together ahead of time and made sure everyone’s hair was tied up just right and their uniforms were okay.

“You’ll do great. Come one, we should get out there, the band’s playing,” Margaery said, and the girls ran out, cheering and yelling as they headed out to the field and got into formation in front of the bleachers on their side of the stands. The place was pretty crowded, King’s Academy’s baseball team was probably it’s best asset as far as athletics went - they had a good diverse group of sports and activities to choose from, but hadn’t really achieved any level of success in any of them other than baseball.

Sansa cheered extra loud when Robb came out, and then kept cheering as Theon and Jon and Renly and Loras and Brienne joined him. (She thought Brienne was kind of weird but she cheered anyway because that’s what cheerleaders do.) She thought she saw Loras wink at her as he went out, and blushed a bright pink, not noticing Margaery standing next to her and grinning back at her brother.

The first part of the game went off without a hitch, and during halftime they were free to mingle. Sansa went over to where the team was hanging out, after they had talked to their coach. Robb was laughing about something with Theon and Jon, as usual, and it took them a moment to notice her presence. Robb extricated his arm from where it rested on Theon’s shoulder and turned to his sister.

“Hey, nice outfit,” Theon said. She tugged her skirt down a little bit and looked at Robb.

“I just wanted to say you guys are doing a really good job so far and I hope you win,” she said.

“Thanks, Sansa. You’re doing great too.” Robb said with a smile. Sansa grinned back and turned to walk away, catching Brienne’s eye almost by accident before she left the room. The older girl gazed at her for a minute before looking down shyly at the tiled floor and Sansa went back outside to join her friends. 

~ 

Septa Mordane picked up a mangled piece of cloth and stuffing and picked at the tangled mess of thread holding it all together.

“This is a disgrace!” she exclaimed, and picked up another attempt at a quilted pillow.

“And this isn’t much better! Sansa! Sansa, are you in here?”

“Yes, Septa?” Sansa asked, looking up from her sewing machine. She had graduated from pillows and was stitching together a teddy bear instead.

“I need you to teach Renly and Brienne how to create a respectable looking pillow. I know this is a pass fail class, but you’re seniors, and if I don’t pass you, you won’t graduate. Sansa will help you.”

Renly and Brienne gathered their things and dropped them onto an empty table in the back of the room, and Sansa joined them a few minutes later after she’d come to a stopping point in her work. She was nearly done with her teddy bear - it was an extra credit project and all she had left to do was stuff it, sew it shut, and add embellishments like buttons for eyes and maybe a smile.

“I thought this would be an easy elective, but I guess not.” Renly said with a friendly smile as Sansa joined them at the table. Brienne said nothing, the girl was so shy and awkward but Renly let her hang around with him anyway. Sansa wasn’t sure why, maybe it was just because Renly was too nice to tell her to go away.

“It’s - um, it’s not that hard once you get the hang of it. I’ll show you,” Sansa said a little shyly, walking over to a machine and sitting down.

“Brienne, can you give me a scrap?” she asked. The tall girl walked over to the basket and pulled out a couple of pieces of rainbow striped cloth, handing them over. Sansa threaded the machine and started using it, sewing the two pieces of cloth together in a straight line right across.

“See? It’s easy, you just have to make sure you keep it straight and try not to get it tangled up.”

“Because if you do, you have to cut it out and start all over,” Renly said, holding up his mess of a pillow. Sansa gave him a tentative smile back.

~

It was a bright sunny Saturday, and almost everyone at King’s Academy was taking advantage of the good weather to hang out outside. Sansa had taken her homework down to the big tree at the far end of campus. Nobody really ever came to this spot, and she found that in the shade of the welcoming red leaves she could concentrate better than anywhere else. After a few hours though, she couldn’t bear studying a single more page, and shut her book, putting it in her bag and heading out towards the lake.

Technically the lake’s name was Lannister Lake, because of the money that Joffrey’s family had donated to the school, but everyone just called it the lake. As Sansa grew closer, she spotted her younger brother sitting on a mossy rock, Osha and Hodor, two of the groundskeepers, lounging on the grass nearby. Hodor didn’t have any shoes on, but that wasn’t too unusual for him, he wasn’t quite right in the head.

As Sansa approached, she heard exactly what Bran was telling Rickon. She was surprised he’d gotten him to sit still long enough to actually listen.

“You can’t just keep on biting people, okay? You’ll get suspended, or worse.”

“Why?”

“Why will you get suspended or why can’t you bite people?”

“I don’t know.”

“Rickon, please!”

Sansa moved on, walking closer to the actual lake. It was shallow, only about six feet deep, but fairly large. She spotted Arya and the two boys she was always hanging out with - one was ugly and chubby, but the other one was older and pretty good-looking - splashing and laughing in the water. She wondered how Arya, one of the most stubborn girls she’d ever known, who kept her hair cut short and was constantly smudged with dirt or grease, had managed to snag a handsome older boy. Then she saw the older boy dunk Arya under the water. He laughed as she came up, sputtering for air, and splashed a huge wave right at his open mouth. He choked and coughed, the chubby boy laughing at the both of them. Sansa shook her head and kept walking.

She spotted Jon Snow sitting under the shade of a tree a few yards away from Robb and Theon. He was playing a big black guitar, singing softly under his breath and periodically turning to a notebook and scribbling things down. Robb and Theon were lost in conversation, ignoring Jon completely. Meanwhile, at the other end of the lake, Renly and Loras were splashing water at Margaery, who was sunbathing on a towell, gorgeous in a pink bikini. Sansa thought all three of them were really glamourous, and wished she could be as cool as them someday. She didn’t see Brienne anywhere.

“Hey Sansa! Over here!”

She turned to see Joffrey, hanging out by the side of the lake with his bare feet in the water. He was surrounded by a few freshman girls Sansa didn’t know, and a large, hulking older boy with a burn scar covering half his face. She’d seen him around before. He didn’t talk much and frankly Sansa found him a little bit scary.

“Hi Joffrey, what’s up?” she said, and sat next to him on the grass when he patted the ground for her to join him.

“That’s your sister, right?” he asked, pointing at Arya and the two boys playing and laughing loudly in the water.

“What, does she think she’s a boy or something?” he said, snorting. He looked over at his intimidating friend, who cracked a tiny smile in agreement.

“She’s really annoying. I’m just glad we’re not roommates at school like we are at home,” Sansa said.

“She shouldn’t be allowed to carry on like that. This is a prestigious school. If she wasn’t a Stark they probably wouldn’t have even let her in.”

“She’s my sister.”


End file.
